Saturday, July 11, 2015

A bungled investigation into sexual abuse of a student in Chula Vista Elementary School sounds familiar to me: an alarming allegation made to a CVESD administrator followed by NO meaningful investigation.

According to a recent Jane Doe lawsuit against CVESD and the San Diego Sheriff's Department, a principal stopped a girl's complaint in its tracks.

I believe that the principal sincerely believed that no
genuine abuse was occurring, and also believed that the child's mother
would protect her. That's why the principal orchestrated a meeting at
which it was decided NOT to start an official investigation. The principal was sadly, tragically mistaken. As a result, both the girl and her sister were sexually abused by their older half-brother during the subsequent eighteen months, and the mother was eventually found to be responsible for the wrongdoing.

So whose fault was the bungled investigation--the principal's or the deputy's? Or someone else's?

I submit that the school district was far more responsible for the outcome than some might imagine. In my experience, school officials call the shots when law enforcement is called in--and this needs to change. The crux of the problem lies in the imbalance
of power between the school district and the lone law officer. This is a
problem that needs to be solved at the top levels of the school
district and sheriff's department. Politics needs to be taken out of the
situation, and should be replaced with professionalism.

Normal
law enforcement procedures should be followed on school property.
Victims should never be questioned in front of people who might be
victimizing them. Police should not take direction from school
personnel.

The political relationship between schools and CPS
is different from the political relationship between schools and the
sheriff's department. CPS does not take direction from school officials
and that might be why CPS was not called in.

CPS might have
done better than the sheriff. Perhaps the girl would have talked more
freely in a private conversation with a civilian from CPS than in a
rather intimidating and formal conference with a uniformed deputy, a
principal, and the mother who had obviously failed her. If the mother
had been available to take care of the problem, why would the girl have
spoken about it to the principal?

I suspect that principals at CVESD have been trained as to how to fulfill the letter of the law.

Certainly the principal was acting correctly from the point of view of the number one rule for school districts: maintain an appearance that there are no problems. One of the major tactics to achieve this goal is to silence voices of discontent, to keep problems hushed up, and to allow only favored individuals to have a voice. In CVESD and in many other districts, maintaining the political status quo is paramount.

CVESD has a habit of maintaining the status
quo by refusing to find out the truth about favored individuals. Sometimes the truth comes out, but I imagine there
are a significant number of cases in which it doesn't.

SAN DIEGO - A father is suing the Chula Vista Elementary School
District and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department after he claims
they failed to protect his daughters from ongoing sexual abuse.

"Somebody dropped the ball," said the father, who asked that Team 10 hide his identity to protect his girls.

The civil lawsuit claims both agencies were negligent when they failed
to report a child abuse allegation to Child Protective Services,
allowing the fondling and inappropriate touching to continue for 18
months longer.

The father spoke only to Team 10 about the allegations, and he said in
March 2012 his 9-year-old daughter told the principal of Sunnyside
Elementary School that she was being sexually assaulted by an older
half-brother. The father became emotional as he spoke about the
principal's decision to call in a sheriff's deputy and the girl's
mother. When the meeting was over, the girl was allowed to return to the
home where the abuse was allegedly taking place.

"Nothing happened," said the father, who claimed that his daughter was
pressured to change her story. "You just can't let it go in one ear and
out the other and assume that a child misunderstood rape and wrestling."

The father, who is not married to the girl's mother, said it was during a
visit with his daughters 18 months later when he first learned of the
abuse allegations. His 15-year-old daughter was visiting him, and he
said, "She stopped me dead in my tracks and started crying hysterically
and told me she was being … that, uh, she was being molested by her
brother."

He added, "I reacted like any father would react. I first got emotional,
because I couldn't believe that this had actually happened to my
daughter."

The father was angry and confused, and within minutes, the emotional pain was unbearable.

"It broke me. It was hard for me to process all of this because as
quickly as I found out that it had happened to my oldest daughter, I
found out just as fast that it had also happened to my youngest
daughter," he told Team 10.

The father did what he said the school principal and the sheriff's
deputy should have done more than a year earlier -- he contacted Child
Protective Services.

"I was told there was never a report made in response to the school
being notified and the school doing their investigation," he said.

Court documents show that within days of notifying CPS, both girls were
removed from their mother's care and sole custody was given to their
father.

The father claims neither the school nor the deputy followed
California's Mandatory Reporting Law, and because they didn't, both his
daughters continued to suffer.

"The abuse continued and it was worse," he added.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of his daughters, refers to them as Jane
Doe and Jane Roe. It asks for damages "stemming from Defendants'
negligence, assault, battery, and negligent and intentional infliction
of emotional distress."

"Because of this failure, these girls suffered immense emotional and
sexual abuse," explained attorney Lorraine Nisbit, who is representing
the two girls and their father....Gilleon also questioned the principal's decision to have the girl's mother present when she was questioned by the deputy.
"When that principal called the mom, she actually called the person who
the CPS eventually blames for all of this. She actually tipped off the
wrong-doer herself."
Gilleon said the investigation was "bungled from the start."

...An attorney for the County of San Diego told Team 10 the deputy involved
in this case is an experienced child abuse investigator who works
closely with CPS. He said the deputy had no basis for any action, so
there was nothing to report...